Mr. Abhi Goes to School

Despite all their similarities, Arjun and Abhi have very distinct personalities. Arjun is the earnest one, Abhi is the interesting one. Arjun is driven more internally while Abhi is the reactive one. Many of his likes and dislikes seem to suspiciously mirror those of Arjun's. Going to school was no different. Arjun pretty much took to school (both Scripps Montessori and PV Elementary) right away, making friends and being totally involved and dedicated to his school work and activities. He is a bit of a perfectionist (total mystery to us of course) and gets very upset if you try to suggest that he is not doing something the correct way (once again, a big mystery).

Abhi could not wait to start school. He wanted to be just like his "eatta" and given his multiple visits to Arjun's class in Scripps, he was raring to go. The first week was fine and then the glow seemed to vanish. School was not just fun and games. There were lessons to be done and stuff to be learned. You had to repeat the same lesson and even worse, you had to remember what you had been taught. He adopted the tears strategy - as soon as his teacher (Ms Ada) asked him to do a lesson, he would burst into tears. She soon cut back from 3 lessons a day to just one. We would elicit promises from him every morning that he would not cry that day. Ms Ada was rather puzzled because he seemed to pick up stuff pretty quickly. Given his exposure to Arjun's learning and Malini's efforts, he was clearly ahead of where Arjun was when he started.

When I asked him why he didn't want to do the lessons, Abhi said that it was because, "I know I can't do it." Maybe our actions have something to do with this: We would often get upset when Arjun would make mistakes or be slow in doing some of his home work. So this may be Abhi's way of avoiding all that unpleasantness. Of course given that this is Abhi, I wouldn't put it past him to have computed that this is the easier way to get out of doing work!

Through all this, Abhi's natural instincts continued to shine through. Once after a bout of crying he told Ms Ada, "Don't tell my parents I cried. Its our secret." Another time, he asks her,
"What time will my amma pick me up?"
Ada: "11.30."
Abhi: "When will it be 11.30?"
Ada explained how the two clock hands would be positioned at 11.30. Then Abhi asks her:
"Can you please get me a small clock so that I can keep it with me? I want to know when it is 11.30."

Thankfully, things are looking up a bit. He has been better the last few days, going so far as to actually ask for lessons to do. He has worked his way up to 4 lessons a day and seems to enjoy (or at least tolerate) school much more. He would still like to be done though: Yesterday he wanted to know why he could not graduate like Arjun had earlier this year and then supplied the answer on his own: "Because I am not a big boy."
What gives us more cause for hope though is what he did in class yesterday: Out of the blue, he told Ms Ada that he wanted to sing a song for her and then proceeded to sing a made-up song which he refused to divulge to us. Starting to see their teachers as equals to their parents is a big milestone in a kids schooling life. Has Abhi reached that point? Maybe, but we are keeping our fingers crossed.